


Too Many Men

by AuthorToBeNamedLater



Series: Keeping Up With The Raptors [14]
Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hockey, Alternate Universe - Sports, Female Characters, Female Friendship, Gen, Hockey, Innuendo, National Hockey League, Raptors, Seattle, Sports
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 17:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorToBeNamedLater/pseuds/AuthorToBeNamedLater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doc and Kendra go out for dinner and end up discussing the men they work with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Many Men

**Author's Note:**

> "Too Many Men" is a penalty called in hockey. Definition here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Many_Men#Hockey
> 
> The Chicago Blackhawks really did go for 6-ish weeks without losing a game in regulation this season.

Kendra Willis, in-game reporter for the Seattle Raptors, was a woman in a world full of men. This didn't bother her. Her younger brother played hockey and currently played for the Raptors' ECHL affiliate the Coeur d'Alene Bighorns, so she'd grown up around guys and sports. And Kendra loved everyone she dealt with around hockey. The saying that hockey players were the nicest professional athletes out there was definitely true and Kendra got to interact with them every day.

That didn't mean Kendra didn't sometimes find herself jonesing for a little girl talk. So after the Raptors finished a 4-1 afternoon loss to the Chicago Blackhawks—which wasn't surprising, six week into the season everyone was losing to the Chicago Blackhawks—and the team had a few free hours before catching their flight to Minnesota, Kendra dragged Samantha Richardson, the team's trainer, to the original Pizzeria Uno's for pizza and drinks. As usually happened when women got together, they found themselves talking about men. And given their respective professions the two ladies had plenty of material.

"So which one of them gives the dumbest answers?" Sam asked as they sat down in their booth.

"You mean in interviews?" Kendra asked. "Ricky."

"That was fast and decisive." Sam peeled off her red fleece jacket with the Raptors logo on the left chest and “TRAINER” emblazoned across the back.

"Evening, ladies." The waiter, a tall black kid with crystal studs in each ear, greeted. "I'm Christian, I'll be your server tonight. Can I start you off with something to drink?"

"Killian's," Kendra said.

"Um...appletini." Sam knotted the sleeves of her jacket around her waist. "You ready to order?" She asked Kendra.

Kendra nodded. They were on something of a time crunch and the restaurant was busy. "We're gonna split a large pepperoni pizza."

"Extra cheese," Sam added.

Christian nodded. "Coming right up." He scurried off to the kitchen.

"Ricky gives dumb answers?" Sam asked.

Kendra laughed. "I mean, what else can you expect, I guess. He's just...he's such an oddball. I don't know what planet he's on half the time." She looked at Sam. "Who's the biggest baby?"

Sam laughed out loud and seemed to think for a moment. "Rusty."

"The tough guy?"

"Typical, right?"

Christian set their drinks down and promised the pizza would be out in a moment.

“When's the last time you went on a date?” Kendra asked when the waiter left.

“Eons,” Sam sighed. “Not since I was working at BC. You?” She took a sip of her drink.

Kendra shrugged. “Same. Eons. Who wants to date a girl who's on the road all the time?” She played with the condensation on the side of her Killian's bottle.

“My dad warned me about that,” Sam sighed. She batted a piece of curly brown hair out of her eyes. The duo made quite the pair: Kendra was still dressed up and made up from her reporting duties, while Sam dressed down in her black pants and a black T-shirt “I never listened. Guess I wasn't thinking about that back then.”

“And here we are, two 30-something single women who work around men and can't get a date,” Kendra said.

Sam snorted and then regarded her dining companion. “Do you...I mean, are you looking?”

Kendra shrugged. “I don't know. I mean, I definitely want to have kids while I still can, you know?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah. All my brothers are married, all but one has kids. I'm the oddball. I guess I thought time was an unlimited resource when I was 20. 35 comes faster than you think.”

“So which Raptor would you sleep with if you could?” Kendra asked bluntly.

Sam nearly choked on her appletini. “Excuse me?!”

Kendra gave a mischievous smile and took a bite of pizza. “You heard me.”

“No,” Sam said flatly.

“Come on...” Kendra prodded as she lifted her beer to her lips. “There's gotta be _one._ ”

"Ladies?" Christian stood beside the table with the pizza and a look like he was walking in on something he ought not hear.

"Thank you," Sam said. Once he had left, she repeated, "No," and reached for a slice of pizza.

“We just sat here discussing how neither one of us has had a date since the dark ages and you mean to tell me you haven't undressed a single Raptor with your eyes?”

“You know what happened to Livvy Truman, right?” Sam asked. Livvy Truman had been the Raptors' in-game reporter until Pat found her behind the Zamboni with then-backup goalie and married man Les Carter. RSN fired Livvy the next day and the Raptors put Les on waivers at the deadline a week later. The organization had done a good job of keeping the details under wraps, but nobody with two brain cells to rub together didn't make the connection that Livvy and Carter left at the same time amid hasty explanations.

“Livvy undressed Les with her hands. There's no penalty for undressing them with your eyes.” At Kendra's  “Come on, you see these guys naked all the time. You must have thought about at least some of them.”

“Naked?” Sam's eyebrows went up. “I think you have some serious misconceptions about what I do for a living.”

Kendra shrugged. “Fair enough. I'd do Ronny.”

“What?!” Sam nearly shrieked.

“Yeah. I go for big men who don't talk a lot.”

“He's married, you know.”

“I didn't say I was going to do him. I said I might, in some alternate universe.”

“One where he wasn't married and you wouldn't get fired?”

“Yeah.”

Sam shook her head.

“So come on. Out with it,” Kendra ordered.

“No,” Sam said around a mouthful of pizza.

“If you don't pick a Raptor I'm picking one for you,” Kendra said.

“Go ahead,” Sam said uninterestedly.

“Mikey.”

The look on Sam's face was worth it all. “Get out of here,” the trainer said flatly.

“I'm dead serious.”

“You're dead, that's for sure.”

“He _is_ kinda hot. Sort of has the Bieber hair going on.”

“You think Bieber hair on a 31-year-old is hot?” Sam looked like an eight-year-old convinced boys had cooties. “Besides, he's frickin annoying.”

“Bieber or Mikey? And I wasn't aware we were talking about their personalities.”

“Why are we even having this discussion?”

“Because I like watching you squirm,” Kendra said with a wicked smile. “Admit it. Mikey's kind of hot.”

Sam shurgged. “I guess,” she conceded. “I mean, it's not like he's a bad guy, but he goes around quoting _Star Trek_ all the time.”

Kendra blinked. “OK, don't you have three brothers?”

“Four.”

“Four brothers. You've never heard a _Star Trek_ quote before?”

“Of course I have.”

“And don't you watch that...that Cattlecar show?”

Sam paused. “You mean _Battlestar Galactica_?”

“Sure. Don't you watch it?”

“Well, yeah, but I don't quote it in polite company!”

“So would you _ever_ go to bed with Mikey?”

Sam was obviously tired of the discussion. “Not without a lot more of these.” She drained the last of her martini. “A _lot_ more.”

Kendra pondered her next question and waited until Sam had set her drink down before asking. “Do you think Ricky's a virgin?”

Sam sat back in her seat. “More than likely,” she answered. She gave Kendra a pointed look. “But I'm not gonna change that, so don't even ask.”

The two women busted out in giggles.

“Oh, my God,” Sam said after a few minutes, wiping her eyes.

“We have to get on a plane and look these guys in the eye in three hours,” Kendra said.

“You started it,” Sam pointed out.

“I did,” Kendra said with a nod. Once she had composed herself she looked at Sam and said, “Come on, it's not like they don't talk about us.”

Still laughing, Sam downed the last of her martini. “I don't know what I'm gonna do next time Mikey comes in needing ice or something.”

“So you _have_ thought about him that way.”

“Shut UP!” Sam ordered. “Let's finish this pizza so we can get to the airport.”

.

.

.

Later on, as the team blasted through the air on a short flight into Minneapolis, Mikey found himself wondering why Doc and Kendra kept looking at each other and giggling like schoolgirls. Somehow he thought it was best not to ask.


End file.
